The SMACS Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A cohort study comparing the novel ‘Sexual Minorities and Prostate Cancer Scale‘ to the gold standard questionnaires investigating erectile dysfunction and incontinence following robotic assisted radical prostatectomy
IRAS ID
305757
Contact name
Tet Yap
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guy's & St Thomas' Foundation NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 30 days
Research summary
Prostate cancer treatments negatively impact sexual and urinary function. Cancer survivorship is a growing issue as more patients live with the after effect of prostate cancer treatments. Many tools have been developed to assess sexual and urinary function following treatments such as the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index (EPIC), ICIQLUTSqol or the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF). However, these do not capture the experience of gay, bisexual and transsexual (sexual minority) patients.
In previous studies of heterosexual prostate cancer patients, erectile dysfunction was reported in 51-60% after 24 months post-treatment and urinary incontinence 7-14% at 24 months. Whilst there is common ground in the obstacle for sexual recovery following surgery, sexual minority patients face additional challenges including erections that are too weak for anal insertive sex, loss of ejaculate, arousal incontinence and climacturia during oral sex or the potential loss of sexual pleasure in receptive anal sex.
In a review of twelve common sexual functioning scales, all focused primarily or exclusively on erectile function and seven explicitly defined intercourse as vaginal penetration. Thus, existing measures used in practice may lack validity in measuring quality of life among sexual minority patients. This not only fails to consider these aspects in the sexual minority survival of cancer but also under reports the scale of the problem in the literature.
The Restore Group, has developed the Sexual Minorities and Prostate Cancer Scale (SMACS) . This is a novel tool developed specifically with gay and bisexual men. Whilst it is important to develop a tool that properly addresses sexual minority patients’ sexual and urinary dysfunction. The goal moving forward should be an inclusive questionnaire that can be used no matter their sexual preference. This study aims to address this by validating this new questionnaire in our post-prostatectomy cohort that will consist of sexual majority and minority patients. We aim to compare this new tool with existing validated tool in our mix of surgical patients.REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
22/LO/0797
Date of REC Opinion
2 Dec 2022
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion